


only this moment

by openended



Series: Bomb in a Birdcage [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: (there's a bit of Cullen/Dorian in this but not enough to grant it a ship tag), Demiromantic Character, F/F, Female Friendship, Fluff, Friendship, Love, Love Confessions, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 06:29:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3477914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openended/pseuds/openended
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which friends are very smart, and Ariadne is very flustered by Feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	only this moment

Vivienne watches as the Inquisitor makes her way up the stairs to her alcove. Coming to visit is not unusual. What _is_ unusual is the rather indelicate way Ariadne flops herself into a chair, presses her palms into her eyes, and groans.  


“Yes?”

“I’m in love with Josephine,” she says, a bit muffled through her hands.

“And that is cause for this,” Vivienne waves her hand at Ariadne slumped in the chair; though Ariadne can’t see her, she’s sure Ariadne understands her meaning, “because…?”

Another groan, slightly more desperate this time, and Ariadne opens her hands as if playing peek-a-boo with an easily-distracted child. “Did you not hear me? I am in _love_ with Josephine.” She covers her eyes again and slides down the chair, nearly half off the seat.

Vivienne laughs quietly to herself and sits lightly on the table in front of Ariadne. “My dear, you’re in love. There’s no reason for despair.”

“Of _course_ there is,” she abruptly sits up. “I don’t know how to _do_ this, I don’t know how to _be in love_.” She huffs and looks to the side. “This is so inconvenient. I have other things to do than,” she gestures wildly at herself, waving her fingers through the air, “ _this_.”

Vivienne lifts an eyebrow. In all their years of acquaintance and friendship, she’s never seen Ariadne so out of sorts and ruffled. “Such as?”

“Corypheus! And rifts. And… _ugh_ ,” her shoulders slump, “things.” She closes her eyes again and leans her head on the back of the chair. After a few deep breaths, she opens her eyes and looks at Vivienne, all theatrics gone. “What do I do?”

“To begin with, you stop making such a fuss about it. It’s love, not a Blight.”

Ariadne leans forward and buries her head in her hands. “Everything was fine. She’s delightful and kind and makes me smile, and she didn’t abandon me when I told her about Ostwick, and she thinks my stupid jokes are funny, and then…” she sighs quietly and drags her hands down her face and back up, settling her forehead in her palms. “Several months ago, Leliana politely threatened to kill me if I was unkind to Josie. And I was hip-deep in sand the other day in the Hissing Wastes, and I realized that _I_ would probably kill me if I was unkind to Josie and...here we are.”

Vivienne gently pulls Ariadne’s hands away from her face. “Ari, is this the first time you’ve been in love?”

She blinks. “No, but.” She sighs, unsure how to finish.

“You’ve been in other relationships, haven’t you? I seem to remember one woman who was around for a year or so: blonde hair, green eyes, particularly adept with ice? And,” Vivienne softens her voice, “there was Lily.”

She looks down at her hands and slips her ring off. “Yes.” She idly spins the metal band between her fingers. “I didn’t think I _could_ be in love again, after Lily. I thought love was for stories and children and...other people.” She sighs quietly. “Not me.”

Vivienne smiles softly. “It appears that love _is_ for you, after all.”

Ariadne stares at her hands. “What do I do about it?”

“Well, there is a series of Orlesian courtship rituals, though I suppose you’d need to modify them to fit Antivan custom. You could probably begin with bringing her…” she trails off into silence when Ariadne smirks. “What? Would you like my assistance or not?”

“I would! It’s...you can skip the beginning-the-courtship part. We’ve been sleeping together for two months now.”

Vivienne scoffs, though not with an unfriendly tone. She’d been ignoring those rumors out of respect for her friend, apparently for nought. “Please tell me you didn’t simply jump into bed with Josephine Montilyet.”

“No! Not at all. There were a few months of talking and flirting and kissing beforehand, it started back in Haven. She cares for me, I know she does, I just don’t know if it’s love for her.”

“You could tell her how you feel.”

But there’s a twinge of hesitancy and regret that Vivienne can't hide in her voice, and Ariadne stops spinning her ring. “If I recall,” she says gently, “that logic didn’t end well for you with Cora.”

Vivienne stiffens. “How do you know about that? You weren’t at the Circle yet.”

Ariadne shrugs. “Cora talks when she drinks frostberry wine.”

“Ah,” Vivienne remembers the wine well, and remembers even better her headache the next morning. “The Wintersend Gala.”

She nods. “The whole story fell out while I was helping her back to her rooms.”

Leaning forward, Vivienne takes Ariadne’s hands in hers. “It hurt,” she confesses quietly, “when Cora said she didn’t love me in return. And it hurt even more when I saw her with Edward.”

Vivienne flinches just slightly upon saying his name; it’s silly, he’s a perfectly nice man she occasionally considers a friend now, but she’d loved Cora deeply. Ariadne looks away. 

“But,” she rests a slender finger under Ariadne’s chin and gently turns the younger woman back to her, “the hurt of knowing is so much better than the not knowing.”

“This is awful,” Ariadne says, flopping backward in the chair again. “It’s awful feeling like this, and there’s a half-chance of even _more_ awful if I tell her.”

“Yes, though there’s also a half-chance,” and Vivienne would wager quite a bit of coin that it is more than just a half-chance, now that she knows the reason for Josephine’s increased brightness as of late, “that she feels the same.” 

* * *

“I shall see you later, then,” Dorian says, and kisses Cullen’s cheek before he stands and leaves the table.

Cullen isn’t aware that he’s staring, watching Dorian cross the tavern, elegantly avoiding a collision with one of the newer recruits carrying far too many mugs of ale at once to be prudent, until Ariadne snorts behind her hand in a failed attempt to cover her laughter. “What?” He turns around, cheeks flushing an impressive shade of pink.

“You are adorable,” she says, with a wide, obnoxious grin.

Ariadne may have known about Cullen’s feelings for Dorian before even Cullen knew about them, but he’s not going to let her gloat on about that forever. “I do recall one Sunday morning -”

“Oh, please don’t.”

“- you wandering into my office, so distracted by the previous evening spent in the company of your dear ambassador that you walked straight into my desk so hard you were bruised for two weeks.”

“If you didn’t insist upon working on Sundays, you would’ve been in the courtyard or playing chess or something when I went looking for you, and that wouldn’t’ve happened.” She takes a healthy swallow of ale, finishing her tankard.

Cullen motions for the barkeep to refill their drinks. “You really ought to tell her. You can’t keep running into things.”

“I’ve been running into things since I was a child, Cullen. How will telling Josephine I love her solve that problem?”

“It certainly can’t _hurt_.”

“This from the man who can’t even tell Dorian that he’s ready for more than just stolen kisses in the library.”

Cullen’s eyes widen. “Ari!” He looks around them frantically, hoping nobody else heard her. He relaxes slightly, seeing no one particularly perked with unusual interest.

“What?” The barkeep slides a full tankard in front of her and she nods in thanks. “He’s made it perfectly clear that he is ready whenever you’re comfortable. You told me two weeks ago that you felt ready, and you’ve yet to tell _him_ that.”

“And Josephine’s made it perfectly clear that she cares very much for you.”

“How is that the same? When you finally find the stones to talk to Dorian, you know it’s going to end in fucking. If I tell Josie, I could end up with my heart broken.” She drops her head to the bar with a thud, and makes a noise in the back of her throat more commonly heard from Cassandra.

Cullen smiles and taps her shoulder. When she lifts her head, he gestures behind her to the door. 

Ariadne turns to see Josephine standing in the door, backlit by the courtyard’s torches, looking around uncertainly. She waves, and Josephine’s face lights up in a wide, sparkling smile when she sees her.

“I doubt heartbreak is a possibility,” Cullen says quietly and slides off his stool, leaving the two of them alone.

* * *

Ariadne sighs quietly as Josephine loosens the laces of her corset. Being able to breathe freely again is nice, but being in her quarters alone with Josephine fans the tiny spark of anxiety that’s fluttered in her chest ever since she promised herself she would tell Josephine tonight.

“Are you alright?” Josephine asks. “You were quiet all through the banquet.” She finishes with the corset and helps Ariadne lift it over her head. Instead of putting it away properly, she casts it aside and settles her hands Ariadne’s hips and gently turns her around.

“I,” she’d planned a speech, practiced it in front of the mirror whenever she had a spare moment for the past week. But it sounds hollow now, even the part about being terrified of a life without Josephine, and so she drops all the memorized words and jumps. “I love you.”

Ariadne watches as time stands still and her world shrinks to only her, this room, and Josephine. Sweet, warm, caring Josephine, with her laugh that brightens even the gloomiest day. Josephine with her sharp wit and love for flowers, with her books and her soft lips that make mornings less of a nuisance. Josephine with Ariadne’s bare heart in her hands.

Josephine smiles, just a quiet quirk of her lips. “Is this why you’ve been so odd lately?”

There’s no sign of accusation or tease in her tone, simply curiosity and a hint of understanding. Ariadne nods, slowly coming to the realization that her heart is safe and protected in Josephine’s hands, that the half-chance of awful was really never a chance at all. “Yes.”

Josephine’s smile grows and she steps forward. She cups Ariadne’s cheeks with her hands and gently strokes her thumb across her soft skin. She lifts up on her toes to gently press her lips to Ariadne’s, only pulling away when she feels the kiss returned. “I love you, too.”

Ariadne rests her forehead against Josephine’s, smiling as she wraps her arms around Josephine’s shoulders and holds her close. “I love you,” she whispers again. The words feel so strange and new, though comfortable. As Josephine’s arms settle around her waist, Ariadne thinks that some day the words might not feel quite so strange, or quite so new, but no less perfect.


End file.
